24 English Thought and Speech Today
I thought I had now progressed far enough to arrange a
sale while the work was still on the stocks, I went to
Mr Bentley and demanded £-t()(),— for the copyright.
He acceded, but came to me the next morning at the
General Post Office to say that it could not be. He
had gone to work at his figures after I had left him, and
had found that £800 would be the outside value of the
novel. I was intent upon the larger sum; arid in
furious haste,—for I had but an hour at my disposal,—
I rushed to Chapman & Hall in Piccadilly, and said
what I had to say to Mr Edward Chapman in a quick
torrent of words. They were the first of a great many
words which have since been spoken by me in that
back-shop. Looking at me as he might have done at a
highway robber who had stopped him on Hounslow
Heath, he said that he supposed he might as well do as
I desired. I considered this to be a sale, and it: was a,
sale. I remember that he held the poker in his hand all
the time that I was with him;—but in truth, even
though he had declined to buy the book, there would
have been no danger.
As I journeyed across France to Marseilles, and
made thence a terrible rough voyage to Alexandria,
I wrote my allotted number of pages every day. On
this occasion more than once I left my paper
on the cabin table, rushing away to be sick in the
privacy of my state room'. It was February, and the
weather was miserable; but still I did my work. Labor
omnia vincit improbm. I do not say that to all men